Backlash
by keyboardninja
Summary: What if Oliver had died when the Gambit went down? How would the lives of his friends, family, and the people of Starling City been different? Series of connected one-shots on what might have happened to each character if Oliver hadn't returned. Note: This story draws on events from Seasons 1 and 2, so I bent the timeline a little to suit my purposes. TRIGGER WARNING
1. Prologue

**AN: Hi everyone! I got this idea from watching It's a Wonderful Life over the holidays and couldn't resist. Many thanks to my marvelous beta, who made this much better. **

**You all know the drill, I don't own this so don't sue me. **

**WARNING: This is not going to be a particularly happy story and will contain references to drug abuse, suicide, murder, and other serious topics so if you are easily triggered please proceed with caution.**

**Backlash**

Oliver stood on the edge of the pier looking out over Starling City Harbor. The cold wind wrapped a damp, chilly shroud around him but he inhaled it deeply, knowing it was likely the last fresh air he'd ever get. He'd been close to death many times before, but still tension tightened around his chest like a noose. Strange as it was, Oliver wished for Slade to hurry up and get there just to break the anticipation.

Glancing down at the dark blue water slapping against the edge of the pier, he saw his distorted reflection looking back at him. A pang of sadness at what he was leaving behind weighed down his heart. Oliver thought of all the things he survived to get home to Starling City. It all seemed like wasted effort now. All the times he'd promised himself he'd never give up without a fight, and here he was about to do just that.

He quickly looked back up at the harbor, jaw clenched with resignation. He knew this was the right thing to do. Tommy, Shado, Moira, they were all dead because of him. He couldn't have any more blood on his hands. Besides that, he was tired of endless combat, tired of constantly having to live up to peoples' expectations, as Oliver Queen and as the Arrow. As morbid as it was, there was a certain kind of relief in knowing that he was done fighting. He'd started down this path six years ago when he brought Sara on the boat, and this was where it ended.

Oliver heard a heavy footstep behind him. Slade was here. He started to turn toward him, then faced the water again. It seemed oddly fitting that he'd chosen this location. "This is where it all started," Oliver said, partly to Slade and partly to himself.

"I got on the _Queen's Gambit _right over there." His voice held a solitary note of regret as he said it. "I should have died on that boat. If I had, none of this would have happened. I never would have met you. Shado and my mother would still be alive." Oliver paused as fresh wave of guilt washed over him. Every time he closed his eyes he just saw his mother lying on the ground in a slick of her own blood… "No one else is gonna die because of me."

He slowly turned to face his adversary for the last time, but before he got there he heard a sudden whistle, then felt the sharp sting of a dart in his neck. Oliver grunted in surprise and reached up to pull out the needle, but his vision blurred, his legs gave way underneath him, and he collapsed onto the cold concrete surface. He caught a glimpse of a figure moving toward him, then a wall of blackness pushed him down into oblivion

.

Oliver's eyes snapped open, and the first thing he registered was darkness and the sound of thunder and rain, loud as gunshots. He slid down a hard surface, then suddenly plunged into icy water. An involuntary gasp rushed from his lungs at the shock, and his limbs seized up in the cold. Wherever he was, it was dark. A frigid wave slapped him in the face, then another forced his head under. He gulped water and flailed his useless limbs trying to fight back to the surface. His head broke the water and he gasped another breath, managing to tread water for a few seconds. Needles of cold rain slanted into his face, nearly blinding him. Was Slade trying to kill him by drowning? Despite the situation, Oliver couldn't help his bark of bitter laughter. At least Slade hadn't lost his cynical sense of humor. The rain meant he was outdoors, but if he'd been thrown off of a boat his adversary had to be nearby. Oliver jerked his head around, looking for a light source. He wanted to look in the face of the man who killed him before the ocean won the fight. After everything he'd been through, he deserved at least that small dignity. And considering all the trouble Slade had gone to to ensure Oliver's suffering, surely he would want to watch the show. He caught sight of a large boat, nearly vertical and sinking into the water several yards away. Not just any boat though, one he recognized. _The _Queen's Gambit_? _It couldn't be.

He didn't get time to think about it before the current dragged him underwater again. The waves knocked him from side to side until he wasn't sure which way was up anymore. Oliver opened his eyes underwater to try and see the surface, but all he could see was the freezing blackness of the sea. His lungs burned with the need for oxygen. He kicked with all the strength he could muster and suddenly he was above the surface again, coughing painfully. His arms and legs were going numb and his muscles felt exhausted and rubbery from fighting to stay afloat. Oliver looked behind him and barely caught sight of the stern of the _Queen's Gambit _as the black waves closed over it. _This isn't happening. Am I hallucinating? Am I already dead? _His heart pounded so hard against his sternum he thought it would burst. If he was dead and reliving the sinking of the _Gambit, _then this really was hell.

The weight of Oliver's heavy wet clothes dragged him down, and he knew he couldn't fight it much longer. He choked in one more breath of air before the waves closed over his head again. Exhaustion made his arms and legs into stone slabs. Oliver squeezed his jaw shut, trying to hold onto the one breath he had, but he lacked the strength to fight the ocean any longer. Pain like a migraine from the lack of oxygen squeezed his eyeballs and made his head feel like it was going to explode. Finally the water pried his mouth open and filled his lungs, and even the knife-sharp pain of the cold deserted him.

Suddenly, Oliver found himself on the surface of the water again, but this time he didn't feel the cold. The storm was gone and the water was calm. He floated on the surface easily, without even having to tread water. To his right side the sun was rising over the sea. It was morning?

"Oliver,"

He spun around to see who had spoken to him and looked into a familiar face.

"Dad?" He asked incredulously. How could this be happening? _I'm dying, _Oliver thought over and over again. _I'm dying, I'm dying. But why am I here? Where's Slade, and how can the yacht be here? This doesn't make any sense._

His father reached out a hand to him and Oliver took it. Robert gripped his son's arm and pulled him up and out of the now calm water. As he was released from the water's hold Oliver felt as if he was stepping onto a solid surface to stand beside his father, even though he could see they were standing on thin air. His head spun.

"What's going on Dad?" Oliver demanded, panic and confusion coloring his tone. "I thought Slade killed me, but it's the _Gambit _sinking all over again, you're here now and…how are we doing this? I don't understand."

Oliver looked back at the water and his mouth fell open with shock. Floating in the water a few feet below them was…Oliver. He was wearing the same gray plaid shirt he'd been wearing the night the boat capsized, but Oliver could tell from the pallid face and the way he floated motionless on the surface of the water that he was dead. He reeled with the shock of looking at his own corpse. "What is this?"

"Just what you wanted, son." His father said calmly. "When Slade was coming for you, you said you should have died when the boat went down. So you did."


	2. Slade, Shado, and Yao-Fei

**AN: Hey everyone! First of all, many, many apologies for the unannounced hiatus. A combination of busyness, computer, problems, and travel got in the way of working on this and some other stories I have in the works. I promise I have not lost interest in this story, and now that things have calmed down a bit I will hopefully be posting more regularly. Thank you so much for your patience and I will try to be better about that in the future!**

**You all know the drill, I don't own this so don't sue me. I hope you enjoy the story!**

Chapter One: Slade, Shado, and Yao-Fei

Oliver stared at his dad in confusion. "What are you talking about? I'm not dead, at least I don't think…but I can't be, I survived the _Gambit_ sinking! I drifted to Lian Yu! This can't be real."

"See for yourself," Robert replied nonchalantly, motioning to Oliver's body in the water. "Why are you surprised? You wished for this to happen. As you waited for Slade to come kill you on the docks, didn't you regret everything that had happened since you survived the boat?"

Oliver opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again. He didn't have anything to say; his father was right. Robert turned slowly to look into his son's eyes. "You think all the suffering that happened on Lian Yu and in Starling was your fault. You think you caused the deaths of all the people you've lost." Robert's eyes were full of sorrow. "You've lost your will to fight, Oliver. I'm here to show you how things changed when you never came home."

Robert grabbed Oliver's arm and squeezed it tightly. Suddenly they were surrounded by white light so brilliant Oliver had to squeeze his eyes shut. He felt hard ground under his feet, and heard the sound of wind rustling trees overhead. He opened his eyes and blinked; they were on Lian Yu, standing right at the edge of the forest. Oliver could see the roofs of several tents in the distance, close to the shore, surrounded by tire tracks and crates of weapons. Fyers's base.

Robert started walking down the path, heading closer to the base, and Oliver followed. "What are we doing here?"

"Don't you want to see what happened to Slade?" Robert replied.

Oliver's stomach twisted. If Fyers and his men were still here, this was before Ivo, before the mirakuru, before Slade lost his mind. For a moment he was thrown back to the first year and half that he knew Slade, when they were friends. Brothers. All the hardship they'd endured together, all the good times they had. According to Robert, now none of that had happened.

Robert stopped walking and motioned for Oliver to look around. They were almost at the perimeter of Fyers's headquarters, and Oliver glanced around before his gaze landed on a large, boxy machine, one he recognized with a trickle of dread. "The missile launcher Slade and I sabotaged."

"Exactly." Not two moments after Robert spoke, Oliver heard a rustle in the woods nearer to the launcher, and Slade himself burst from the trees and sprinted toward the machine. _He's trying to dismantle it, to save that plane. But he doesn't have any backup. _Oliver watched as Slade ripped a panel from the base of the launcher. Broken circuits and bits of wire scattered the sand at Slade's feet as he hacked away with one of his signature double swords, trying to cause enough damage before he was caught. Oliver wanted to do something, wanted to rush forward and help, but he knew instinctively that it was useless.

Slade's head snapped up in alarm as the shouts and pounding feet of approaching soldiers reached his ears. Slade was trained well enough to know that there wasn't enough time to get away; he just sheathed his sword and started ripping out wires with his bare hands, using the last few seconds he had to try to destroy the missile launcher. Fyers's men surrounded him before he could even step away from the sparking hole he'd left. They lined up in a circle around Slade, twenty guns trained on him.

A taller, bulkier figure stepped forward to face Slade inside the circle of masked soldiers. Oliver recognized the two-toned mask that hid the man's face. It was Billy Wintergreen, Slade's traitorous former partner. He didn't say a word, just drew his swords and nodded to Slade to do the same. Face contorted with anger, Slade snatched his weapons from their sheaths and charged at his opponent.

Wintergreen side-stepped Slade's first attack and opened a cut on his bicep, but Slade quickly paid him back with a swipe to his left thigh. Blood welled up from both wounds as they faced each other and clashed again. Their swords collided with a metallic crash. Sand-colored clouds of dust rose around them, punctuated with the silver flashes of their blades. Oliver's fists clenched at his sides, tense and angry but unsure how he wanted the fight to end.

Slade's sword made contact again, swiping a long gash across his opponent's forearm. Wintergreen swung his weapon in a vertical arc toward Slade's head, but Slade ducked the blow and kicked Wintergreen hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him and sending him sprawling backward. Slade stepped forward to attack again, but Wintergreen yelled something to the soldiers, and one of the men in the black ski masks raised his gun and fired. The bullet ripped through Slade's lower calf and he fell to his knees with a cry of pain. His twin swords made twin thuds in the sand in front of him.

Wintergreen scrambled to his feet and walked toward Slade, kicking his swords away as he did. Slade knelt there panting, eyes locked on his former partner, blood soaking his pant leg and dripping onto the ground. Slade didn't make a sound as Wintergreen raised his weapon and sliced his throat. Blood spurted from the wound, scattering the sand and Wintergreen's mask with a thick red spray. Slade slumped over onto the path, the last of his life bleeding out into the sand. Wintergreen sheathed his swords and turned to head back to the base, motioning for the soldiers to follow. They slung their guns over their backs and walked away, leaving Slade lying there bleeding out.

Oliver stumbled forward a few steps and sank to his knees. After everything Slade had done to him, taking Queen Consolidated, kidnapping Thea, killing Moira, all the pain he'd caused, Oliver didn't expect the icy hand that squeezed his heart as he watched his former friend die. But seeing him like this, alone on the island trying to save people he didn't even know from Fyers's plan, made Oliver remember the old Slade, the one who was his mentor and friend. Slade was the one who first taught Oliver how to fight, the first one who looked past the selfish, lazy kid and saw potential. As much as Oliver hated him for what he'd done in the past year, he never wanted him to die like this, completely alone.

"Fyers launched the missile and took the plane down a few weeks later." Robert said resignedly.

"And Shado?" Oliver whispered.

"Fyers killed her, along with her father, right after he forced Yao-Fei to make the video taking responsibility for downing the plane."

Oliver winced at the memory of watching Yao-Fei die. And Shado, a woman he had loved, dead along with him, the last year of her life spent as Fyers's prisoner. But still, if Slade was dead, that meant he was never exposed to Mirakuru. Moira, all those people in the Glades, all the people he killed, they must still be alive. Oliver slowly got back to his feet. "If Slade died on the island, he never came to Starling. Everything that's happened over the past year, those people are all okay. They're alive."

Robert sighed. "Slade wasn't the only person whose path was different because you died, Oliver. Maybe we should go see your sister."


End file.
